Case Number 10750

THE ANIMATION SHOW (VOLUME 1 AND 2 BOXED SET)

The Charge

"Damn the illusion of movement! Damn the illusion of movement to
Hell!" -- Fuzzy Creature, "Welcome to the Show"

Opening Statement

Film festivals come in several flavors. There are the spectacles: swag-filled
and paparazzi-infested zocalos like Cannes or Sundance. There are the artsy
fests, where obscure films shot in black and white on camcorders chronicle the
ennui of lesbian pizza delivery drivers for audiences of four or less. Then
there are the animation tours. Every few years, somebody collects a few
pretentious experimental shorts, some cartoon fart jokes, and maybe a cute CG
piece or two, and throws them up on screens in college towns. A few careers were
made this way. Mike Judge parlayed a crudely drawn bit about teenage morons
hitting a frog with a baseball bat into a marketing juggernaut (Beavis and
Butthead) and a steady and sly sitcom gig (King of the Hill). Mike
Hertzfeldt stayed along the fringe, gaining critical accolades and a few
festival laurels with hilariously cynical examinations of life on the edge of
absurd collapse like "Lily and Jim" and "Rejected."

So, to return the favor, Judge and Hertzfeldt (brought together by festival
favorite Bill Plympton) put together their own animation festival. Here are the
first two years of The Animation Show on DVD.

The Evidence

Actually, the discs, covering the 2004 and 2005 shows, are slightly different
from the touring programs. A few shorts were dropped, and a few were added to
compensate. For example, the touring version of the 2004 show also included,
among other pieces, an Aardman Animation short, segments from the "Mars and
Beyond" episode of the Disneyland television show (which you can
catch on the Walt Disney Treasures Tomorrowland set), and Hertzfeldt's
"Rejected."

Any short film festival is going to have a few strong pieces and a few duds.
Because there are so many pieces spread out over these two discs, I will note
the highlights and skim through the lesser bits.

Volume 1: The 2004 Tour

* "Welcome to the Show" Knowing that a large segment of the
Animation Show audience bought tickets in the hopes of seeing Hertzfeldt's
brilliantly mordant "Rejected," Hertzfeldt delivers three short
segments -- the welcome, an "Intermission in the Third Dimension," and
a closer -- that hearken back to gags from the earlier cartoon.

* "Mt. Head (Atama Yama)" Koji Yamamura layers
delicately-colored pencil work with textured digital effects to create an
organic world. The surreal, shaggy-dog story itself is a popular children's tale
about a man with a cherry tree growing out of his head, performed in traditional
Japanese style with a shamisen.

* "Parking" You can't have an animation fest without Bill
Plympton, the shining star of the indie animation scene. His favorite theme is
man's battle against chaos: here a parking lot attendant fights off a blade of
grass cracking its way through his pavement. It is an amusing trifle, light on
story.

* "Moving Illustrations of Machines" If the Brothers Quay
remade "Ballet Machanique," it would probably come out much like this
moody abstraction by Jeremy Solterbeck. The hypnotic parade of alien machinery
runs a little bit long, but it is a strong contrast to the comedic shorts that
bookend it. For some reason, this short is not listed on the packaging, nor is
there a page devoted to the artist in the program guide.

* "Billy's Balloon" Childhood is turned on its head in Don
Hertzfeldt's savage revision of "The Red Balloon." Hertzfeldt's comic
timing makes it all viciously funny.

* "Early Pencil Tests and Other Experiments" Mike Judge
provides some leftovers -- and the legendary Milton cartoon that later evolved
into Office Space.

* "Aria" You can't have an animation festival without an
entry from the National Film Board of Canada, one of the great patrons of the
cartoon world. This time, it is a stop-motion riff on Madame Butterfly,
with naked puppets making love. Eat your heart out, Team America! It all
unravels inventively by the end.

* "The Rocks" A stunning stop-motion tale of living rocks
slowly biding their time while the world evolves around them, this German short
is comparable to Aardman's work in cleverness and technical proficiency.

There is also some filler in the program. None of it is bad, just not likely
to draw you in for a second viewing. Clay animation is represented by a
collection of works by Adam Elliot (a droll trilogy about a dysfunctional
family) and Corky Quakenbush (four "Ricardo" shorts, starring a
rambunctious four-year-old). "Fifty Percent Grey" and "The
Cathedral" are beautifully animated but personality-free CG fantasies that
look like the best cut-scenes from the best computer game you've never played.
We get a Flash-animated music video ("Bathtime in Clerkenwell") and
the requisite impressionistic piece ("La Course a L'abime").

Most of the shorts are presented in full frame, with a few exceptions (like
"Fifty Percent Grey") in widescreen. Print quality varies: a few
pieces have noticeable scratches or dirt on them. This is not surprising,
considering the homebrew production values on many independent cartoons.

There is a generous assortment of special features on Volume 1. Several of
the shorts come with production art galleries or storyboards, including
Hertzfeldt's segments. Hertzfeldt also offers a short commentary track about how
he does his special effects without digital help. Bill Plympton and Corky
Quakenbush offer affable commentary on their works. Quakenbush includes his
first, experimental Ricardo short. We get some behind the scenes footage of the
motion capture session and some animation tests for "The Cathedral."
Mike Judge throws in a deleted pencil scene starring Beavis and Butthead's
favorite neighbor, Tom Anderson.

Volume 2: The 2005 Tour

The second volume is less fragmented: there are fewer series shorts (like
Quakenbush's "Ricardo" or Hertzfeldt's interstitials), and the
individual pieces are more fully realized. There are still a few forgettable
pieces (CG one-off jokes like "Rockfish" and "Fallen Art,"
romantic cuteness like "Hello," and the stop-motion
"Fireworks" and "Magda"), but the program is clearly finding
its voice in the second year.

* "Guard Dog" Bill Plympton starts things off with this
tale of a paranoid canine who imagines everyone and everything is a threat to
his beloved master. The animation is not as fluid as with some Plympton works,
but his use of shading and color shows why he is the master.

* "The F.E.D.S." Interviews with those sample slingers you
meet at the supermarket are transformed into a rotoscoped piece (live action
overlaid with animation) colored as a pop art fantasy.

* "Pan With Us" There are echoes of Stan Brakhage in this
poetic homage to the Greek god and how nature sneaks into urban landscapes. This
stop motion short is intriguing because artist David Russo literally shows his
hands manipulating the objects in the shots, making the artifice seem
organic.

* "Ward 13" Most animated shorts fall into two categories:
goofy joke or pretentious art piece. Either way, short cartoons are often about
the punchline. While that can be said of much of The Animation Show, some
pieces play against type and take advantage of every moment of screen time they
get. Peter Cornwell's clay animated "Ward 13" is fun because it is a
horror film with touches of dry humor. High production values (including a
marvelously edited fight sequence and a 90 piece orchestra) help too. Sam Raimi
is apparently a fan -- and "Ward 13" does have the tone of one of his
movies.

* "When the Day Breaks" The abrupt tragedies and small joys
of daily life are played out through delicate pastel coloring rotoscoped over
live footage. Another National Film Board production, this film is distinguished
by its skillful use of closeups.

* "The Meaning of Life" You would think a title like this
would lead into a pretentious, self-absorbed cartoon. But this is festival boss
Don Hertzfeldt, who once again shows his uncanny ability to hit profound notes
warmly wrapped in inspired absurdity. He is funny and frightening at once, and
nobody working today makes each new cartoon pay off with such original wit and
experimental verve as he does. His ability to give stick figures such a range of
emotion with offhand gestures makes him heir to George Herriman and Charles
Schulz. "The Meaning of Life" is not as balls-out funny (nor as
terrifying in its climax) as "Rejected," but its humor is a necessary
bulwark against its sense of existential despair.

I wish the special features included something -- anything -- from
Hertzfeldt about the making of "The Meaning of Life." Instead, we get
lots of behind the scenes stuff about the shorts on the disc I really care least
about. "Magda" creator Chel White offers an art gallery and a snappy
"Frank Film"-style collage piece about the writing process. I liked it
better than his festival entry. The creators of "Fallen Art" offer
some behind-the-scenes production footage. "Fireworks" artist PES
delivers another very brief stop motion piece made with toys and found junk,
plus a featurette on its creation. Jennifer Drummond and Bob Sabiston (who both
worked on Richard Linklater's Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly)
show how they produced "The F.E.D.S."

The most interesting special feature is an all-too-short overview of the
history of the animated short film. Yeah, a century from Gertie the Dinosaur to
The Animation Show squeezed into 14 minutes. Judge, Hertzfeldt, and cartoon
historians like Jerry Beck get sound bites, some public domain clips are worked
in (no Disney, of course, but there's Betty Boop). We learn nothing about
technique (for instance, how is UPA different than Disney in style and
influence?), but the focus seems to be on the history of the animation film
festival in the last half century. It is pretty thin though. Why talk about
ASIFA (the first international animation organization) without mentioning
Canada's National Film Board or Norman McLaren? How did Judge and Hertzfeldt
choose particular films for their program?

Closing Statement

The good pieces outweigh the weak ones. That's always the sign of a solid
film festival. "Ward 13" is a particular treat, but nifty stuff from
Bill Plympton and the National Film Board are worth watching too. Fans of
Office Space have been begging for years to see the original Milton
shorts. You also get a nice, juicy taste of Don Hertzfeldt's art. He upstages
everyone in the program, although I doubt he means to do that. The Animation
Show is reasonably priced and should offer fans of cartoons of all sorts of
exactly what film festivals are really all about: the thrill of discovering the
next big thing.